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Exclusive: Sugar23 today announced the hiring of Aubrey Morgan as a Literary Manager, repping writers, authors and directors.

“We are thrilled to welcome Aubrey to the Sugar23 family,” said the company’s Founder and CEO, Michael Sugar. “Her exceptional taste, unwavering dedication to her clients, and ability to identify and nurture distinctive creative voices are in perfect alignment with Sugar23.”

Previously at Mosaic Entertainment, Morgan has over a decade in representation under her belt and is known for championing bold voices as a tenacious and passionate manager. She brings with her a diverse array of TV and feature writers, including Emmy winner Ariel Levine, Talia Rothenberg (writing original feature Le Bal for Netflix), Crystal Garland (Outer Banks), Jennifer Graham Imada (Lucifer), and Max Saltarelli. Morgan also reps writer/showrunners Jaclyn Moore and Karen Kicak, bestselling author Anna Malaika Tubbs, creators and executive producers Rothrock & Weir (Our Ladies), showrunner Lindsay Weiglein (Dance Moms), and animation writer Jen McCartney (Solar Opposites).

“I am honored to work with a company that matches my fierce commitment to creative integrity,” Morgan said. “Sugar23 is at the helm of innovation in the entertainment space and I look forward to uplifting daring voices with this team.”

Morgan is the latest to join Sugar23 on the heels of James Crane, who boarded as Director of Business Development in April, as we first reported. Founded in 2017, the company’s credits on the production side include Spotlight, The Knick, The Oa, Maniac, 13 Reasons Why, I Am the Night, and The Turning Point on MSNBC, among others. It’s also been making big moves in the branded side of late through partnerships with the likes of Starbucks (on Starbucks Studios) and Fifth Season.

Exclusive: Andrew Lincoln is returning to British TV.

The Walking Dead star has landed his first role on this side of the pond for well over a decade in an ITV thriller that he will EP titled Cold Water, which is penned by storied playwright David Ireland and produced by Eric outfit Sister. Fellow cast includes Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting), Indira Varma (Obsession) and Eve Myles (Keeping Faith).

In Cold Water, Lincoln will play John, a repressed man who who is shocked to find himself in middle age, secretly raging at his life as a stay-at-home dad. He moves to a backwater Scottish village and strikes up a friendship with next door neighbor Tommy (Bremner), who is despised by wife Fiona (Varma). When her husband’s relationship with their enigmatic new neighbour becomes increasingly intense, Fiona’s suspicions are aroused. She is unconvinced Tommy is all he seems to be.

Lincoln...

The Les Arcs Film Festival has unveiled the 18 European film projects selected for its Les Arcs Coproduction, running from December 16 to 19 within the framework of the Alpine event’s 15th edition.

The selection, chosen from 269 submitted projects hailing from 15 different countries, has achieved gender parity in terms of the directors involved, even though only 36% applications of the projects submitted were directed by women.

Ten of projects are first fiction feature projects, five are second features and 3 by more established filmmakers, including Michael Caton-Jones and Ena Sendijarević, whose latest film Sweet Dreams is the Netherlands’s Best International Feature Film entry this year.

The Netherlands is Les Arcs Film Festival’s country focus this year and the Coproduction village will welcome three projects from the territory.

There will also be an industry talks program featuring a panel on production issues related to AI, organized by the European Producers Club,...

In 1996, the British band Suede – or The London Suede as they’re known in the United States, thanks to a trademark lawsuit – released their third album, “Coming Up”, which opened with the song “Trash”. A catchy, breezy anthem for the downtrodden trying to find love and excitement in monotonous or outright dirty environments, “Trash” posits the potential for rebellion and individuality in stale English suburbia, where bonds of solidarity can form among people drawn to each other due to shared outsider status: “But we’re trash, you and me/ We’re the litter on the breeze/ We’re the lovers on the street.”

With its motif concerning garbage on the street, “Trash” could have been an all-too obvious needle drop in “Hoard”, a (mostly) mid-90s period piece set in the exact sort of humdrum British milieu evoked by Suede, with literal refuse playing a major part in the strange...

Warning: Spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Finale - "Hegemony"

Martin Quinn debuts as the young Lieutenant Montgomery Scott, Aka Scotty, in the season 2 finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Although not yet Chief Engineer, Scotty shows his resourcefulness and ability to overcome challenges in the face of danger. Scotty's arrival on the Enterprise and possible replacement of Commander Pelia opens up new possibilities for his character in season 3.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' season 2 finale, "Hegemony," introduced Martin Quinn as the young Lieutenant Montgomery Scott, Aka Scotty. Originally played by James Doohan, Scotty first appeared in Star Trek: The Original Series as the Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner). Scottish actor Martin Quinn plays a younger version of the character who served as a lieutenant junior grade on the USS Stardiver. Unfortunately, the Stardiver is...

A cast of emerging talent has been set for BBC comedy-drama “Boarders,” from Daniel Lawrence Taylor, creator of the BAFTA nominated “Timewasters.”

The 6 x 45′ series produced by Studio Lambert (“The Nest”) in association with All3Media International, follows the lives of five talented underprivileged Black students from inner-city London who win scholarships to St. Gilbert’s, an elite boarding school. Stepping out of the urban metropolis, they experience the highs and lows of boarding school, learn about themselves, their identity and what life on the other side looks like.

“Boarders” will star Josh Tedeku (“Supacell”), Jodie Campbell (“Bulletproof”) and Myles Kamwendo (“The School for Good and Evil”) alongside Sekou Diaby and Aruna Jalloh, both making their screen debuts. Lawrence Taylor will play a mentor figure to the students.

The cast also includes Derek Riddell (“Happy Valley”), Niky Wardley (“Queen of Oz”), Harry Gilby (“Tolkien”), Tallulah Grieve (“Our Ladies”), Rosie Graham (“The School for Good and Evil...

Variety Director to Watch Prano Bailey-Bond (“Censor”) and BAFTA-nominated “After Love” filmmaker Aleem Khan are among the 39 filmmakers longlisted in the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) new talent categories.

The 39 longlisted filmmakers will be invited to join BIFA’s Springboard scheme, a tailored program of professional development, peer-to-peer support, mentoring, networking and skills enhancement aimed to nurture emerging talent as they build on the success of their first features.

The final five nominations in each category will be announced on Nov. 3. Winners will be revealed at the ceremony on Dec. 5.

The longlists:

The Douglas Hickox Award

(Best Debut Director)

Aleem Khan – “After Love”

Matt Chambers – “The Bike Thief”

Prano Bailey-Bond – “Censor”

Jonathan Butterell – “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie”

Sonita Gale – “Hostile”

Jack Clough – “People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan”

Reggie Yates – “Pirates”

Celeste Bell “Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché” [also Directed By Paul Sng]

Corinna Faith – “The Power”

Charlotte Colbert – “She Will...

‘Candyman’ starts in second place for Universal.

Rank Film (Distributor) Three-day gross (Aug 27-29) Total gross to date Week 1 Free Guy (Disney) £1.6m £11.2m 3 2 Candyman (Universal) £1.1m £1.46m 1 3 The Paw Patrol Movie (Paramount) £563,000 £5.9m 3 4 Andre Rieu’s 2021 Summer Concert: Together Again (Piece of Magic Entertainment) £432,000 £432,000 1 5 Jungle Cruise (Disney) £402,000 £11.14m 5

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.38

Disney’s Free Guy led the UK-Ireland box office for a third successive weekend with a £1.6m Friday to Sunday result, as Picturehouse Entertainment’s The Nest scored a strong result for an independent title.

Free Guy’s result was down 29% on its previous session, representing...

Further new openers include ‘Our Ladies’, ‘The Nest’.

Universal’s franchise title Candyman leads this weekend’s new openers at the UK-Ireland box office, looking to join the list of horror films to have made strong debuts since cinemas reopened.

Candyman is directed by Nia DaCosta and written by DaCosta, Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld. It is a direct sequel to the 1992 film of the same name, and the fourth film in the Candyman series, based on Clive Barker’s 1985 short story The Forbidden.

The film has been delayed several times due to the pandemic, having been first scheduled for June,...

Further new openers include ‘Our Ladies’, ‘The Nest’.

Universal’s franchise title Candyman leads this weekend’s new openers at the UK-Ireland box office, looking to join the list of horror films to have made strong debuts since cinemas reopened.

Candyman is directed by Nia DaCosta and written by DaCosta, Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld. It is a direct sequel to the 1992 film of the same name, and the fourth film in the Candyman series, based on Clive Barker’s 1985 short story The Forbidden.

The film has been delayed several times due to the pandemic, having been first scheduled for June,...

Things were going well for Scottish filmmaker Michael Caton-Jones at the start of 2020. The director of Scandal (1989), This Boy’s Life (1993) and Rob Roy (1995), among many others, Caton-Jones was preparing for the theatrical release of Our Ladies, a passion project he’d been trying to get made for over 20 years. It had received its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2019, where it “played out of this world”, in his words, to an audience of roughly 800 attendees in its first public screening. Flying relatively under the radar in a stacked program largely […]

The post “I Feel Completely Vindicated Now the Film’s Been Made”: Michael Caton-Jones on Our Ladies’s 20+-Year Journey to the Screen first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Things were going well for Scottish filmmaker Michael Caton-Jones at the start of 2020. The director of Scandal (1989), This Boy’s Life (1993) and Rob Roy (1995), among many others, Caton-Jones was preparing for the theatrical release of Our Ladies, a passion project he’d been trying to get made for over 20 years. It had received its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2019, where it “played out of this world”, in his words, to an audience of roughly 800 attendees in its first public screening. Flying relatively under the radar in a stacked program largely […]

The post “I Feel Completely Vindicated Now the Film’s Been Made”: Michael Caton-Jones on Our Ladies’s 20+-Year Journey to the Screen first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

To celebrate the release of Our Ladies, which opens in UK cinemas this week, we sat down with the film’s amazing cast and its director to find out about one of the year’s very best films.

Based on the award-winning novel “The Sopranos” by Alan Warner, Our Ladies follows a group of Scottish schoolgirls on a day trip to Edinburgh to perform in a choir competition. These teens from a small town in the Scottish Highlands become a chance to escape their daily lives and run riot in the big city. With few expectations for their futures, Orla (Tallulah Greive), Finnoula (Abigail Lawrie), Manda (Sally Messham), Kay (Eve Austin), Chell (Rona Morison), and Kylah (Marli Siu) is determined to live for every moment in this raucous tale of love, life, and true friendship.

We spoke to all the ladies about the film, their experiences together whilst making it,...

The Production Guild of Great Britain (Pggb), in partnership with the British Film Commission, has revealed the participants for its inaugural Diversity and Inclusion Mentor Scheme.

The program has matched 15 emerging talent mentees with experienced industry mentors working in U.K. film and high-end TV production.

Professor Lyndsay Duthie, CEO of Pggb, said: “This first cohort spans talent of differing ages at various points in their careers, all looking to progress to the next level. For the next six months they will receive dedicated regular contact time with their mentors, who will help them hone their goals, overcome challenges and implement effective steps to help them progress along their chosen path.”

Samantha Perahia, head of production for the U.K. at the British Film Commission, said: “Access to experienced crew is a vital component of any successful stage space development. This kind of initiative, which focuses on diversity and inclusion...

New comedy Our Ladies is the latest UK film to ditch the jolly hockey stick representation of old in favour of complex characters

You can’t help wondering how British movie schoolgirls would fare among their American counterparts. How would Hermione Granger cope in the high school canteen with the Heathers or the Mean Girls? Take away her wand and they’d eat her for lunch. While US screen teens are often worldly, sharp and fashionable, it feels as though us Brits are still clinging to a wholesome, jolly hockey sticks fantasy of female education, as seen in the likes of St Trinian’s or Wild Child, where the pupils are naughty and anarchic, but still reassuringly innocent.

Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips...

Company secures first-look film and TV deal with Sony Pictures.

Former Sony Pictures International Productions executive Luke Scrase has launched Golden Gate Studios, a UK-based production company, and secured a first-look deal with Sony Pictures

Golden Gate Studios will primarily focus on developing and producing UK and European genre films as well as television series for the global market. The aim will be to produce a mix of both English and local language content.

Scrase remains attached as a producer or executive producer on various projects he initiated during his time at Sony Pictures International Productions’ UK unit.

While at Sony,...

Luke Scrase, the former Sony Pictures International Productions executive, is launching his own UK-based production outfit Golden Gate Studios. The company has secured a first-look deal for film and TV projects with Sony, effective this month.

Golden Gate will focus on developing and producing British and European genre films as well as commercially-driven television series for the global market. The aim will be to produce a mix of both English and local-language content.

Scrase remains attached to various Sony projects he initiated during his time in the studio’s UK office. His credits include Michael Winterbottom’s Greed and Michael Caton-Jones’s Our Ladies, the latter of which is coming out later this year. He also has Patrick Marber’s Curtain Call, set to star Colin Firth and Gemma Arterton, and The Dead Spit of Kelly, to be directed by Iain Softley, in the works.

“I’m thrilled to be...

Statement says going ahead would have been “irresponsible” amid rising Covid-19 cases in region.

The 31st edition of Dinard Film Festival, the annual celebration of British cinema in northern France set to run from September 30-October 4, has been cancelled due to rising Covid-19 cases in the region.

A statement on the festival’s website said Dinard mayor Arnaud Salmon took the decision after the prefecture announced on Monday (September 14) that the department of Ille-et-Vilaine was going into the “red zone” in light of “worrying figures, constantly increasing”.

The statement said festival heads felt it would have been “irresponsible to expose the health of our citizens,...

Franco-uk event to include the European premiere of ‘Ammonite’.

The 31st Dinard Film Festival, the annual celebration of British cinema held in northern France, has unveiled its full line-up and secured the European premiere of Francis Lee’s Ammonite.

The festival is set to go ahead as a physical event from September 30-October 4 and its previews strand includes romantic drama Ammonite, which received a Cannes label and has its world premiere at TIFF today.

The six films in competition comprise Nick Rowland’s Calm With Horses; Thomas Clay’s Fanny Lye Deliver’d; Claire Oakley’s Make Up; Bassam Tariq’s...

Live-action/CGI hybrid becomes second major studio release to shift.

Sony Pictures has pushed the UK, European and Us release of Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway from March 27 to August 7, making it the second major studio release to shift due to concerns about the impact on cinema audiences of measures to combat the new coronavirus.

The studio confirmed it has postponed the Us release for the live-action CGI hybrid from April 3 to August 7, partly prompted by Dreamworks Animations’ decision to move Trolls World Tour forward a week to April 10 from April 17,

The change follows that of Universal’s James Bond title No Time To Die,...

Glasgow Film Festival celebrated its highest ever attendance, with more than 43,000 admissions. In addition to the 43,147 attending screenings and events across the city, over 3000 people attended the first ever UK exhibition of work by legendary Hollywood photographer Susan Wood. The exhibition ran throughout the festival at The Lighthouse.

GFF20 finished in style on Sunday night with the UK premiere of How To Build A Girl, the big screen adaptation of Caitlin Moran’s memoir which was directed by Coky Giedroyc. Moran and Giedroyc were both in attendance. This year the festival also played host to a number of guests including Simon Pegg, George Mackay, Earl Cave, Simon Bird, Monica Dolan, Emily Beecham, Imogen Poots, Celia Imrie, Bill Paterson, Alice Winocour and the cast of Our Ladies. International guests included Marjane Satrapi and Ingvar Sigurðsson.

Gff closed on International Women’s Day (Iwd) with a programme dedicated to female talent both...

Allan Hunter reflects on the 16th edition.

Glasgow Film Festival co-director Allan Hunter reflected on the 16th edition, which drew record audience numbers and a surprise guest in Simon Pegg, as an indirect result of the coronavirus outbreak.

Can you talk about how you feel this year’s festival has gone?

Going into this year, I felt it was a diverse, wide-ranging programme and wondered if audiences would come out… and they have. They’re up for any challenge. As part of our retrospective programme, we had 260 people come to a free screening of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker. They were queuing out the door.

Allan Hunter reflects on the 16th edition.

Glasgow Film Festival co-director Allan Hunter reflected on the 16th edition, which drew record audience numbers and a surprise guest in Simon Pegg, as an indirect result of the coronavirus outbreak.

Can you talk about how you feel this year’s festival has gone?

Going into this year, I felt it was a diverse, wide-ranging programme and wondered if audiences would come out… and they have. They’re up for any challenge. As part of our retrospective programme, we had 260 people come to a free screening of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker. They were queuing out the door.

Our Ladies stars Marli Sui, Tallulah Grieve, Eve Austin, Sally Messham and Abigail Lawrie on the red carpet Photo: Eoin Carey

Most film festivals take a couple of days to get started properly as people travel in from around the world, but by Friday morning the Glasgow Film Festival was in full swing. Despite distinctly less cooperative weather than the previous day, there was a good sized crowd at the Gft for the morning screening of Planet Of The Apes – the Charlton Heston original, of course – with fans discussing how much they loved it and how great it was to get the chance to see it on the big screen.

Roy's World director and producer Rob Christopher and Michael Glover Photo: Kat Gollock

After all the excited talk about The True History Of The Kelly Gang the previous night, many fans who had missed it took the opportunity to see...

"It was an innocent time. Back in the days when anything was possible." Sony Pictures has revealed the first official UK trailer for Our Ladies, a Scottish coming-of-age dramedy adapted from a book titled "The Sopranos." Set in the 1990s in Scotland, the film is about a group of Catholic school girls get an opportunity to go into Edinburgh for a choir competition, but they're more interested in drinking, partying and hooking up than winning the competition. Described as a "must see riot of girl power" in one review quoted in this trailer. This Scottish coming-of-age stars Tallulah Greive, Abigail Lawrie, Marli Siu, Sally Messham, Rona Morison, Eve Austin, Stuart Martin, Jack Greenlees, and Kate Dickie. Looks like a fun time, and an empowering story about growing up and figuring out what kind of life you want to live. Give it a look. Here's the official UK trailer (+ poster) for Michael Caton-Jones' Our Ladies,...